American Express put resources into FalconX and focused goals on driving innovation and improvements in digital currencies. The platform currently generates around $ 3 billion in monthly transaction volume.
American Express continues with its investment plans in companies that work with bitcoin; it has been under development for about five years. This time, it introduced capital into cryptocurrency platform FalconX through its venture firm American Express Ventures.
The credit card provider did not disclose the amount of investment in the San Mateo, California-based startup, which raised $ 17 million in May from Accel, Coinbase, Ventures, and five other companies.
“American Express Venture invests in startups as a way to better understand emerging areas of the payments ecosystem, and we are pleased to support FalconX as it continues to drive innovation in the digital asset space, including digital currencies. ” Said Harshul Sanghi, Global Head of American Express Ventures.
In his view, FalconX brings simplicity to the increasingly complex digital asset space through a platform that provides discovery and pricing in one place.
Raghu Yarlagadda, CEO and co-founder of Falcon X, noted that the cryptocurrency platform wants to build a payment service using digital currencies, and could learn from the experience of American Express.
He also added that the company is seeing growing interest from traditional asset managers who are adding cryptocurrencies as an inflation hedge, catalyzed by recent macroeconomic policies.
FalconX’s revenue has seen an increase of 350% since May 2020, when it completed its last round of financing. The platform generates around 3,000 million dollars in volume of monthly transactions and has 250 institutional clients ”. Said Raghu Yarlagadda.
American Express, investments and its relationship with bitcoin
American Express Ventures noted that since 2011 it has invested in more than 70 startups focused on commerce, payments, fraud prevention, data analytics, and security. The company assured that it has 12 investment professionals on its payroll, it reported on its website.
American Express invested in the abovementioned startups for the first time in October 2015, aiming at companies that work with bitcoin. On that occasion, American Express participated in the latest round of the Abra startup in an attempt to take a closer look at the cryptocurrency industry and its expansive environment.
Since five years ago, Abra went from being a startup that allowed its users to store their money digitally using their smartphone to an application where they can buy, sell and operate with more than 100 cryptocurrencies, the company points out on its portal.
How does Abra work?
Getting started with Abra is very easy and simple. It starts by downloading the application from Google Play or Apple Store and setting up the wallet.
Remember to keep the recovery phrase in a safe place. Abra does not save your keys; if you lose the keys you can restore them without problem by using the 12 words of the recovery phrase.
Adding funds is very easy too; users can add funds through:
- SEPA bank transfer
- Credit / debit card
- Balance in cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, or Litecoin)
From Abra, you can exchange and invest in any of the accepted assets. Over 100 traditional assets, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and cryptocurrencies.
To invest, users first must look in the “Manage assets” section and select the assets they want to buy or select. Then, they can go to the “Exchange” section and exchange between the selected assets.
By: Jenson Nuñez.
